-The Hindu T.N., Gujarat lead list; toll could be higher as many States do not report incidents The number of deaths of sanitation workers while cleaning septic tanks and sewers has risen, despite a ban on manual scavenging, with 620 cases reported since 1993, of which 88 occurred in the past three years, according to the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry. To a question by MPs Asaduddin Owaisi and Syed Imtiaz Jaleel...

-The Hindu They have not set collection targets The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has pulled up 52 companies — including Amazon, FlipkART, Danone Foods and Beverages and Patanjali Ayurved Limited — for not specifying a timeline or a plan to collect the plastic waste that results from their business activities. The Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, (which was amended in 2018) prescribed by the Union Environment Ministry, says that companies that use...

-The Hindu The campaign, launched by the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority, has identified over 42,400 such children Jaipur: A campaign for bringing dropout students back to schools, launched by the Rajasthan State Legal Services Authority, has identified over 42,400 such children through para-legal volunteers in the State. With its mandate to ensure right to education for each child, the Authority has initiated action in collaboration with the State government's Education DepARTment for...

-The Hindu Official attributes it to clerical error GUWAHATI: The birth register of the municipality in southern Assam’s Silchar town says Sunirmal Bagchi was born on September 21, 1943. This did not prevent the 76-year-old from being marked a ‘foreigner’ during the process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that had taken March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for determining citizenship. Mr. Bagchi’s name figured in the draft list of...

-The Indian Express The FM has rightly spoken of a “focus on integrated demand and supply side management of water at the local level, including source sustainability and management of household wastewater for reuse in agriculture”. India is not a water-short country. We have merely managed our plentiful water very poorly. What we need, therefore, is a paradigm shift in policy. Could the finance minister (FM) be said to have risen to...